Texas officials testify that redistricting process was ‘bipartisan’

Lawyers for Texas defended the state’s redistricting plans Tuesday as open, bipartisan and compliant with constitutional requirements despite legal challenges that the new political lines discriminated against minority voters.

“The process was fair and it was open,” attorney Adam Mortara told a panel of three federal judges, which began hearing two weeks of testimony in the Texas redistricting case.

But lawyers for the Justice Department and minority groups set out to show Republicans in the Legislature overrode Latino and African American rights when they drew state House, Senate and congressional maps.

State Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, testified that hearings were held statewide to allow input from all groups and citizens to form a bipartisan basis to redraw political lines.

Under cross-examination, though, Hunter said he was unaware new political lines in Corpus Christi that eliminated a Latino state House seat also lumped all of his possible competitors into a neighboring district.

His claim no one had complained about the minority makeup of the new state House districts was refuted with a videotape of Luis Figueroa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund telling a legislative hearing that eliminating the Corpus Christi seat would be tantamount to a Voting Rights Act violation.

District Judge Rosemary Collyer has agreed to allow more than 30 hours of testimony in the case, which will determine whether the Texas Legislature‘s redistricting maps hold up to constitutional standards.

A federal court in San Antonio has drawn interim maps in anticipation that the D.C. court could find the state violated the Voting Rights Act and the Legislature’s maps cannot be used.

The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether the court-drawn interim maps can be used in the political primaries, which have been moved from March 6 to April 3.

How the state moves forward on elections will hinge on the ruling in the D.C. federal court.

Justice Department lawyers assert that minority voting strength was diluted under the new state maps for state House and congressional seats.

But minority rights groups claim the state created no new congressional seats and eliminated five state House districts that would allow Latinos and blacks to elect candidates of their choice, despite the fact that minorities represent 90 percent of the state’s population growth between 2000 and 2010.

Gerardo Interiano, a staffer who drew the maps for Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, testified there never was intent to discriminate against minorities.

Interiano said most of the political lines in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley were drawn with the guidance of lawmakers from both parties.

“The goal was to have map that would meet legal scrutiny,” Interiano said.

Under cross-examination, Interiano acknowledged that precincts with lower Hispanic voter turnout were sought to protect U.S. Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-San Antonio, and Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, in those congressional districts, while keeping the percentage of registered Latino voters the same.